all roads that lead me here
by the girl from back then
Summary: The prequel oneshot to my Seigaku OC fic, 'Falling Up'-previously titled 'we are the stars and more'. Of learning to let go and fly free whilst still being firmly rooted to home ground.


_**all roads that lead me here**_

_**A/N: **__Hello everyone! I__'__ve decided to write a short oneshot that__'__s kinda like a prequel to my Seigaku OC story We Are The Stars And More. So, to get both stories, you__'__ll need to read them. To all the people who haven__'__t read WATSAM, please read it now or you probably won__'__t get anything. To all the people who read WATSAM, please review the latest chapter! Okay so this story is kind of a short thingy on the past team and it will reveal a bit on Ayame__'__s past and her sister Yuki. More will be revealed about Yuki as the story goes on because what happened to her before the story is actually the backbone of it._

_**autumn**_

On the windy hillside with the dandelions, there's a girl. She's young, only fourteen or fifteen maybe, with flowing pink tresses and beautiful honey eyes.

She's thinking—what is she thinking? Nobody can be quite sure, really. Those eyes gaze into the distance, making her seem older, weathered, a little bit sad, like still waters.

Stagnant, a remembrance of a time long gone, seeming to have lost the ability to move, without a catalyst that is.

'Ayame, Ayame!' A musical, sweet voice calls.

It's another girl, a little bit older, with the same pink hair and honey eyes.

The girl called Ayame looks up, dropping the dandelion she was clutching, leaving only an envelope in her soft hands.

'Yuki-nee,' Ayame smiles, and when she smiles, she really does it with her body. Her eyes light up and her hair fans out behind her and she sits a little bit straighter, as if wind has stirred up the still waters.

Yuki sits down beside her sister, her long legs stretching out in a way Ayame's chubby ones never really could, reaching reaching reaching while Ayame was stuck, not being able to move.

'What are you thinking?' She asks her little sister. She's just returned from tennis practice and she's a mess but she looks so beautiful, because it was so obvious in her eyes that she loved tennis, and it made her. It was a part of her.

Ayame shoves the envelope into Yuki's hands. 'I'm going to Seigaku's high school with you as soon as school starts! This is the list of what I'll need, as in books and stuff! I'm so excited to be with you.'

Oh, because she was. Ayame was always, always there, wherever Yuki went. She trailed after her older sister like a shadow, holding on and trying to reach success through Yuki, because Yuki could, and Ayame couldn't, if she let go of Yuki she'd be left behind.

Yuki smiles, and ruffles her sister's hair. 'What would you do if I were gone?' she asks, and it's a simple question that's light-hearted and meaningless really, but—

—it gets Ayame thinking for months.

_I__'__m nothing without you._

She stands up, picks up the dandelion and blows on it, watching the seeds fly away, letting go of the stem.

She feels alone.

_**winter the next year**_

Ayame is no longer a little girl. She's a second year and a Seigaku regular with her sister as captain. She's easily the strongest player, except for Yuki-nee, of course, because Yuki-nee is kind of like a constant, an anchor, something so steadily there that couldn't be rooted from it's spot, something that Ayame tugged behind, holding on, reaching reaching reaching forward yet never quite surpassing.

She asks Yuki to play her seriously, but Yuki just smiles and ruffles her hair and calls her cute.

_**spring**_

There's a hospital. There's a middle aged man with his arms around a weeping woman. A sixteen year old Ayame knows better than to seek comfort in her parents, because they're so badly trying to comfort themselves and each other.

She just sits down and grabs a magazine.

There's no Yuki now. Yuki is lying on a hospital bed while a machine is her lifeline, connecting her with the earthly world, oh without it she would be a spirit drifting away, and maybe Ayame would go with her?

That thought scared Ayame. She followed Yuki everywhere, but maybe not this time.

Later, the doctor comes to tell her parents that Yuki is going to breathe her last and this is the final goodbye.

Her parents say the goodbyes and cry and cry and cry but Yuki doesn't, she just sits there blankly as if she's been expecting it and waiting for it.

Ayame doesn't cry either, because Yuki doesn't.

Then Yuki weakly summons Ayame, and although she's dying, she sounds so firm in her resolve, so constant, so there.

_I want to be like you I need to I need to be like you._

'Ayame,' Yuki says. She doesn't really have any emotion in her voice and goddamnit that hurts. She merely sounds like she's reading from a book, a sad book maybe, but just a book.

'You never got to play me seriously,' Ayame responds quietly.

Yuki draws her close. 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Aya. I just, I don't know, I guess I was cowardly, I didn't see you as an equal, you know? Like, I wanted to, I wanted you to be your own person, but I kind of wanted to be above you at the same time, and that was really selfish of me, and god Aya I'm so sorry I love you don't you see?'

'I don't see how you could be selfish or anything bad if you're Yuki-nee,' Ayame says plaintively.

'Oh Aya, my god I'm so sorry for letting you down! I, I—you've idealized me, it's my fault too, I was wrong to make you think I was perfect, I shouldn't have put myself above you, it's just that, Aya you're not a little girl anymore—'

Yuki is struggling to breathe.

Ayame lets a tear fall from her eyes.

She thinks she maybe gets it now, maybe.

'Shh, Yuki.' She doesn't add the -nee, she's addressing Yuki as an equal, a person, not a big sister, not the ultimate paragon of Life and the space between heartbeats.

Ayame has always been Yuki's shadow, a seed clutching onto the dandelion stem.

Now she needs to fly free.

'Ayame, oh Ayame, I love you, you know that? You have to promise me—promise me, you'll win. You have to win, got that? For me. But—but whatever you do, you have to do it your own way. Not as Hara Yuki, but as Hara Ayame. You have to find yourself, without me.'

_Without you. I__—__I don__'__t, oh Yuki-nee, I don__'__t see__—__but I__'__ve got to. We can__'__t choose our roles in life. I need to do something for myself, for once. This, this is for you, but for me too. I__'__ve got to win for the both of us. I promise you. It__'__s to help me get stronger as well as fulfil your wish of seeing us win Nationals._

They link hands and that's eternity and always, but not forever.

How could something be forever, if still waters have to move by themselves, and dandelion stems fly away before the seeds?

_**summer**_

The windy hillside with the dandelions is no more. The council has made it into a park.

Ayame was sad, but then she remembered Yuki's words. And then she thinks of her own.

All roads lead here, but ultimately, it's her alone who ends up here. Not Yuki. Just Ayame.

And here? Here is the space between sleep and consciousness. Here is the space between life and death. Here is everything but not forever.

Here is the dandelions in the autumn. Here is the park. Here is everything but no not forever, not forever.

And maybe that will end up okay.

Ayame picks up one last dandelion, the only one left she can see, and blows on it, watching the seeds fly free.

Not forever.

But Here.

Still linked, somehow, but on its own, the seed flies free from the stem.


End file.
